


Memories

by Zoya113



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst, Depressive Thoughts, F/M, Hurt and comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 22:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20919746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya113/pseuds/Zoya113
Summary: Emma gets hung up on the past





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This is just an indicator of all the other shitty works that I’ll produce this month in a last ditch attempt to complete promptober ahfhsbfh

Home alone, that was always bliss.

It was an adoration Emma had picked up throughout her life, from backpacking through Guatemala to living with in her parent’s hell house. Being alone just meant no one could be mad at her, no one could criticise her or tell her what to do.

Of course that wasn’t really a problem living with Paul. He never took any issue with her. But it was still a creature comfort of hers. 

She had one hour left until Paul got home from work and for the time being, she was enjoying the peace, waiting patiently for him to return. 

She had a crime documentary playing on her laptop and left overs from last nights take away. It was stormy outside and she was putting on freshly washed pyjamas. 

She couldn’t imagine many other situations she’d feel so comfortable and relaxed in. 

“Let’s fucking get it, man,” she grinned to herself as she set her laptop down on her bed and her bowl on the bedside table. “Finally time to lay down!” 

As she tossed herself down on the bed though, it was like drifting years back into her past.

The silence wasn’t so comforting all of a sudden. 

Her eyes flicked about the room, pausing her documentary as an uneasiness settled over her. Something wasn’t right. 

She took in one uncertain breath and it was like her memories had bunched her in the face. 

The smell of left overs and the feel of the empty bed sparked memories inside of Emma.

Memories of her lying in bed staring at the roof, angry or upset, promising to herself she would try and make a new friend tomorrow. Memories from right after moving back to Hatchetfield when she knew no one but her parents. 

Making friends was so hard and she didn’t know what else to do. 

Memories of staying up alone at night, trying to deal with her emotions on her own. She wouldn’t dare reach out for help even if she had it. 

Memories of when everything was wrong. She had no one and her life was going nowhere. Days she would race home from work to lay in bed, eating shitty left over take out food as her first and only meal of the day because her parents weren’t cooking anymore. 

Emma shook her head, shuffling back up from under her sheets with a shudder. For a second, the memories were so vivid. 

She nursed her hand to the side of her head as if pleading with those thoughts to leave her alone. 

She pressed play on the documentary, exhaling a breath she didn’t remember taking in. It was okay, she told herself. 

The documentary was good. It took her mind off things, slipping her back into her rest until the host spoke started to speak about the victim. 

A small girl, working on a different schedule to her parents, no friends, no social life. No one noticed when she went missing.

“Now you’re just playing with me!” Emma brought her hand down on her laptop to slam the slid shut. She picked it up and tossed it to the other side of the bed before slipping out from under her sheets to take her plate to the sink and dump it out. It wasn’t appetising anymore anyways. 

She stood in the kitchen, glaring at nothing in particular. 

Except she didn’t know what to do now. She wasn’t going back to her documentary and there wasn’t anything else to eat. 

“You’re a fucking dumbass, Emma.” She pointed at her twisted reflection in the metal of the sink. “And if you died!” She didn’t finish her sentence but paced down towards the bathroom to grimace at her reflection. 

Even now, Emma wasn’t going to community college to make friends. She didn’t know anyone there and she didn’t really need to. 

She sat in her own seat at the front of the class that had two vacant seats on either side of her. She never needed a friend to study with, she knew the work well enough on her own. They rarely did group projects and when they did she was perfectly happy to be tossed into whatever group needed an extra person. 

She would eat her lunch with Hidgens, but if he was busy she would study in the library at her own table. 

And she didn’t have a single problem with this. 

She never considered herself asocial, but in hindsight it was starting to seem that way. 

“Hah.” She shook her head. It didn’t matter. She was fine, she was happy now. 

She lived with the love of her life, she hadn’t seen her parents in a year and she had her best friend, Hidgens. 

She didn’t accept the thought that it was a rather bare bones social life consciously, but her head did the processing for her. 

“C’mon, fuck off,” she tried to block out the thoughts but with every second she got angrier she could only remind herself of how bad things used to be, and how little they had improved. 

She walked back to her bedroom, laying down with her head in her pillows. She pounded one fist into the mattress and didn’t raise her head until she needed to breathe. 

But it was no use. She was mad. She was lingering on the past and she knew she wasn’t getting out of that train of thought very easily. 

“It’s fine. That’s fine. Oh yeah. That’s fine,” she sat back up. Her whole body was stiff and moving was hurting.

“What did I used to do to fix this?” She shook her hands to give her hands something to do, hurrying to the kitchen table where her notebooks lay. 

She grabbed a handful of pages, enough to make her struggle with pulling them out. She teared the sheets in half before balling them all up and pressing them down in her fists. She pelted them all into the bin. 

It was a year ago. It shouldn’t matter what she was like then. Things had changed, things had changed, she just had to keep telling herself things had changed.

She had her own home now and she shared it with the love of her life. Things were okay, they were better now.

But if they were so much better why couldn’t she stop thinking about everything? 

She realised she hadn’t even spoken to Paul yet today, and it was almost dinner time. She had woken at 6 for work, and they were both too busy to text. 

Her head was stupid. He had probably already text her just to make sure she had gotten home safely. She headed back to her bedroom, her body starting to ache in its stiffness. But she felt if she didn’t have conscious control over every single movement she would collapse or throw some sort of tantrum. 

“You should not be this angry over your stupid, fucking memories,” she scolded herself. 

But she felt so far back. She felt vulnerable again. She missed Jane as much as she did when she died and she felt just as alone. She couldn’t surface from underneath the memories. 

She didn’t quite make it to her bed, she reached her climax just as she walked through the doorway. Everything holding back her anger gave way and it flooded out of her like a crashing wave. 

“Fuck,” was her single utterance of defeat. 

Maybe she just had to get it out of her system. She crouched down on the floor to give herself a break, resting her forehead against the wall. She knew she would feel better tomorrow really, she would probably be better in the hour.   
The second Paul got home and she wasn’t alone it would all be better. 

She drew her knees up under her chin and sighed. She just had to wait it out. 

Her mind was blank. It had had its fun tormenting her with the past, but now it was just as tired as her, and was finally allowing regular, day to day thoughts to return to her.

Even her stomach grumbled, and she would probably be able to go for those left overs she had thrown out. She could probably even watch her documentary again, albeit maybe a different one. 

Very vaguely, she could hear the sounds of Paul coming in through the front door and dropping off his suit and case. 

She’d move in a second, throw away all that sadness and make herself more presentable before he could find her curled up on the floor like that, all so he wouldn’t ask questions. 

But she could hear him walking down the hall to their room and she didn’t move. Maybe she did want to talk about it. 

“Oh! Hey babe, just sitting on the floor?” He nearly tripped over her as he walked in, but squatted down next to her so they could be eye level. 

“Hey, Paul,” she flickered a tiny smile at him before frowning. “Yeah. I’m just chilling.” She drew circles on the floor with her fingers. “Just, y’know,” she shrugged. 

“Hah, yeah man. Sometimes you just gotta sit on the floor. Are you all good or?” 

“Just moping,” she answered. “I’m okay really I guess.” 

“You’re sure?” He asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. 

She nodded. “Just thinking about the past, all that depressing shit. But I’m doing fine right now honestly.”

“We’ll talk about it tonight,” Paul promised. “You can tell me everything if you want. But how about now you get up and get dressed? We’re having guests.” 

“Guests? Your friends?” She took her forehead off the wall and leant back to look at Paul properly. 

“My friends? I think they’re ‘our’ friends at this rate aren’t they?” He snickered. “C’mon. They’ll want to see you too. Melissa, Charlotte, everyone.” He gave her his hand to help her up. 

“Our friends?” Emma echoed with a small smile. 

“Well you hang out with Melissa don’t you? You’re on like, a first name basis with everyone at work.” He gave her a smile that suggested he had an idea what she was getting worked up about. “They’re all your friends too, Emma.”

A grin cracked through her frown that she couldn’t hold back. “I-“ She stammered. She knew her earlier work up had been needlessly over the top anyways, but there was something to deeply comforting to know she really wasn’t alone, that she had made progress this year. “Got it. I’ll get ready.”

He knew her too well. He had figured out exactly what sore spot she had hit and comforted her all without confrontation.  
He pulled her into an embrace and rubbed her back with his thumbs. “You’re okay, hun, I promise,” he whispered into her ear like he was keeping a secret from the rest of the world.

She rested her head against his chest. It was official, finally the day ‘his friends’ became ‘their friends.’ She really had made progress, and it had just been decreed in Paul’s own words.   
“Thanks, Paul.”


End file.
